More pictures, less downvotes.

More PicturesWe've had the image post restrictions for about 4 months. We are going to relax the rules a bit.Image Fest Friday is now Image Fest Weekend. Post all the pics you can handle Friday, Saturday, & Sunday.On Monday through Thursday, any "fluffy" image posts will probably be removed, but relevant & newsworthy pictures are allowed (for example, if there was a train derailment and someone decided to post a first-hand picture, that's fine).Any bandwagon photos should be kept in a single thread (following images concerning the above train derailment should be kept in the original thread, don't start a new thread).

Less downvotesWe removing the downvote for posts.This is a test and we discuss its effectiveness in one month.A recent post in /r/technology showed that, by design, a recent submission with downvotes will rate lower than a old submission (regardless of votes). In other words, downvoting new posts directly affects how often the front page changes (since the old posts are kept ranked higher).You will still be able to downvote comments.

The increase in images and the decrease of downvotes should help vary the front page and bring in more discussion. Speaking of discussion, what do you think?

Mods, with all due respect, I think users want to moderate their own page with the given (if flawed) tools via up/down vote buttons. If the Reddit Algorithm is flawed, why can't we just live with it? Why are the mods going to such trouble framing what essentially is our experience of r/Chicago? You mod the sub (less is more) and let us mod our own experience.

This is how I sort the sub. I also take time to read most if not all the headlines until the posts I've read come up. I look at the number of comments and if it's a lot, then I go deeper. I don't look at downvotes.

I strongly agree. I came on just as Chicago was being awarded best subreddit, but then somehow it became a place that seemed affirmatively hostile to most posters. I'm sure it wasn't most people, but there were enough eager downvoters that lots of stuff never got seen and I'm sure I wasn't the only person who decided it was just too unpleasant to try to post here.

I sometimes think that the downvoting is naughtiness stemming from the public navel gazing that I've seen on this sub. Not a bad thing; it shows the mods care. However, my point is that if Reddit programmers have designed it to be this way, and they don't care, and other algorithms like karma points formula are secret, then why are we being Sisyphus-like.

I hated the rule for a long time, but recently have begun to appreciate it more. I wish there could be exceptions (or changing original to a self post) for the ones that are really insightful/enlightening, but realize that is asking for trouble because of the ambiguity.

Even better would be allowing images but disallowing skylines, but that's also ambiguous.

Not sure about removing downvotes though. /new is filled with a lot of garbage that rightfully disappears quickly. I'll reserve judgment on that one.

Unlimited picture posts on the weekends with no downvotes? So basically if you don't want to see something, you have to upvote everything else. A war of upvotes in a subreddit of people who don't like to upvote.

If downvotes are disabled, then who right now is downvoting the reader article about Rahm moving ahead with the 18 mil LPE expansion? I'm happy to see it downvoted but....how? Are the mods still clutching their downvote capability?

Agreed. The whole sweeping ban against pictures was a terrible idea, and this subreddit became a news aggregator instead of a city message board like it was before (how I personally preferred it). I had the Chicago section on Google news for that, I didn't need a subreddit for it.

The ban had straw man written all over it too, and all because people didn't want "skyline" pictures. We could have just banned those though and it would have been better off. Some of the best discussions that occur in this subreddit happen around the picture posts too, so I'm really happy to see the mods trying to foster more of it.

That being said, I hope we classify skyline pics (and those like it) as the kind of "fluff" that gets removed.

first of all, there was never a sweeping ban against pictures. you could still post pictures, but you had to do it in a selftext post.

the pictures that were cluttering the subreddit and making it shit were:

skyline photos

memes... how many "Winter is coming" posts do we really need to see? it's not the first year in Chicago for most of us...

borderline unethical pictures (photos of people on the El with "if you do this, fuck you", and whatnot)...

these are just a few examples...

why were these sorts of things posted? they weren't posted because OP thought they'd generate interesting discussion - they were posted for imaginary internet points because they always succeeded at earning that. they earned those imaginary internet points because they're quickly digestible and therefore statistically more likely to receive upvotes.

this subreddit became a news aggregator instead of a city message board like it was before

This is an interesting perspective, and I respect it, but reddit has always been a news aggregator first, a message board second. It didn't even used to have the ability to comment!

Now, let me be clear, I like a hybrid of both. We don't need just one or the other.... but "message board" and "image board" are also two different things. imgur is an image board and no longer needs reddit to be so. 4chan is an image board.

I don't mind picture posts. I do mind the fact that reddit's picture biased voting system turned /r/chicago into a sub that was 80% pictures at one point.

hell, probably be branded as a heretic, but I even like the skyline pics...the prettiest thing I encounter on a regular basis is flying into O'Hare, over the city, on a clear night. We've got a gorgeous skyline right here.

Delighted about removing downvotes on posts. I think it may help a lot since there seem to be a cadre of earnest down-voters here that keep a lot of stuff from going anywhere. But reasonable to evaluate after a month. I also think that allowing more photos will improve the overall attractiveness of the sub. It's dull to have just a full page of text. So good work, IMHO.

So basically we are going to get the same story from 5 different news sites on the main page from now on? Down votes are there for a reason. I don't know why there is this attitude that nothing good comes from a down vote. Also, I know which threads I have read by the down or up vote. No way to do that now.

I pretty much have no opinion on the photo rule changes. The 'hide' button is really helpful for image posts. I'd prefer a subreddit without pictures (even on friday), but I don't care enough. Its just the internet, and not worth getting upset about. Good luck with this. Now you get to decide what pictures are 'fluffy' and which ones aren't. I'm sure everyone will have a calm and reasonable reaction to your decisions.

I predict that the removal of the downvote button won't really have the intended outcome, but it never hurts to experiment. I'm still struck by the fact that most people complaining about how all the posts suck (and all the good stuff gets downvoted) don't actually submit anything. Despite my requests the last time this topic came up, no one was able to provide a list of improperly downvoted threads.

So my question: Will mods be removing "I'm a tourist that doesnt know how to google/read the sidebar" threads? Because downvotes might be the only thing keeping those from dominating the subreddit (especially during peak tourist season).

Despite my requests the last time this topic came up, no one was able to provide a list of improperly downvoted threads.

I never saw this request.. but here's my suggestion to you:

browse /new in here using Reddit Enhancement Suite to see the ups/downs, and see how the VAST majority of posts seem to have 4+ downvotes. Why? Many of them are just questions from people -- reasonable, not-in-the-sidebar questions, like "where can I volunteer on christmas?"

now, go to a subreddit like /r/hockey and browse /new... look at the ups/downs there... sure, a fair number of posts have downvotes, but VERY few of them are downvoted to near-zero scores and many posts there have only 1-2 downvotes.

a group of people is systematically downvoting the crap out of stuff here, and reddit's sorting algorithm disproportionately screws over posts that get downvotes early in their lifetime.

maybe they're voting them down because they hate content like questions about good places to volunteer, or furniture stores, or articles about Chicago's history (a few things I'm seeing in the first 25 of /new right now)... or maybe they're voting them down because they're posting their own stuff and want it to have a better chance of rising up? I have no idea.

All I know is that the proportion of downvotes here is REALLY high compared to other subs I read and/or moderate.

Eh, I think it might be 'new people' each time downvoting threads. Theres no evidence to suggest some kind of organized group screwing over people. Unlike /r/hockey, people here don't really have anything in common, so they have their own vision of what the subreddit should be. Some people want news, some want to be chatty, some just stop in for one question and never return.

4 downvotes on a post doesn't really suggest a gang, more just a few people annoyed by the constant repeats. Volunteer questions have been asked and helpfully answered a million times. Same with tourist questions. And parking restriction questions. And... Most people ignore the repeated questions, but 4 people (out of 40,000) clicked downvote.

Basically, people should learn to use the 'hide' link more than they do. Is it possible to keep the downvote button next to posts, but change its behavior to just hide the story, rather than actually downvote?

Anyway, good luck, mods. Its a thankless job, and I really do appreciate the effort. See y'all next month for the next "downvoting people are meanies" /r/chicago circlejerk.

you're right.. but due to the way reddit's algorithm works, even 2 downvotes in the first few hours pretty much cripples a post..

i'm not suggesting there's necessarily a "gang", but when you compare /new on here to /new on tons of other similar sized subs (or bigger ones) you just don't see nearly as much consistent downvoting of so much stuff.

I, for one, don't think hiding the button is going to do a damn thing, but we'll try it.. :-\

Yes and people always say that's Reddit's algorithm. That is not Reddit's algorithm to downvote that much to offset. Also, when a thread has 3 upvotes and 15 downvotes, that's also NOT Reddit's algorithm.

She showed that there was, on one day, a higher number of downvoted posts in /r/chicago compared to other subreddits. My request then, and now, is in seeing actual threads that were improperly downvoted. Because I gave a list of several threads that deserved to be downvoted that no one argued with, not even you and kitsy. She was counting all downvoted threads, including a bunch of unnecessary repeat posts about a storm. It wasn't a good metric.

These 'meta threads' are worse than a billion skyline picture posts. I'm fine with the downvote button being removed, I'm fine with the new image rules. Neither one is going to make everyone happy, and we'll have another circlejerk next month about how mean people downvote things.

Are those posts really cluttering up the subreddit that much? I've never seen one get highly upvoted to the point where it's even visible on the front page. Or usually if one does get upvoted that much, it's because it had some interesting premise around it, which is fine with me because it bolsters interesting discussions.

I agree - sometimes they're really good threads. But the person posting it needs to be specific about what they want, or have done at least a tiny bit of research (or subreddit searching) beforehand. I'd never suggest removing all tourist advice threads. I've lived here for a long time and still learn a thing or two from them.

Then there are the clueless / lazy tourist threads. Now that they can't be downvoted (in theory), will the front page get a lot of them? I honestly don't know how this will impact it, but it seems like as long as the mods are judging photos for fluffiness they can judge tourists for laziness.

I don't know if it's something to worry about, or rather if it's something that we should use as the reason to put the downvote button back in - at least for now. Reddit auto downvotes threads as they age, and proportionally to their upvotes to help curb huge spikes (and other shit that the reddit admins want to curtail).

Look at the Barack Obama AMA for an example. 240,728 upvotes vs 225,975 downvotes. There's no way that many people actually downvoted it, but reddit adds some artificial ones to prevent it from being the most exorbitantly upvoted thread of all time. Or something. I don't know, the reddit admins have that shit figured out.

Bottom line is it probably won't ruin this subreddit, so it's not worth worrying about like we always tend to do with the small shit in /r/chicago.

I think that's a great move to relax the image rule for relevant & newsworthy pictures as long as it is properly enforced -- which I bet it will be given the overall quality of moderation here. I suspect that the demand on moderation will be especially high in the first month as submitters learn the boundaries of the new rule -- really, new standard--but that things will ease in once some time passes. To me, this decision to allow a small amount of images during the weekday will improve the overall quality of the subreddit -- who wouldn't want to host one of the first images of a major incident in the City or an otherwise newsworthy occurrence?

I'm less optimistic about the decision to expand "Image Free Friday" into "Image Weekend." If we're already onboard with the premise that the sort of images submitted during IFF are generally low-quality content--and it seemed the community did reach consensus agreement on that, given that we went ahead and created IFF to preserve the quality of the subreddit--then why are we now re-expanding the domain for that sort of content beyond the one day? And if anything, the decision to weaken the no-images rule for Monday through Thursday makes the concern about expanding IFF all the more valid -- because once you allow highly relevant images during the week, people can't argue that the restrictions still in place (like IFF) deprive the community of highly relevant image content! So what exactly are we gaining by expanding IFF?

The expansion to the weekends was decided because Saturday and Sundays are our slowest days. It would generate more content.Also, us mods don't necessarily want to sit around at our battlestations during the weekend, believe it or not, we like to leave the house!All said, we're always willing to see how things go and make further changes as needed.

Regarding the removal of the downvote option, I'm concerned. I understand that there is currently a flaw in the reddit algorithm. But I don't know if that necessarily makes removing the ability to downvote the desirable solution. Are we gaining more than we're losing by doing this? Because here is what I know we are losing: by taking away the ability to downvote posts, we lose 1 out of 3 sorts of "feedback" options. There is a meaningful difference between: 1. upvoting, 2. neither upvoting nor downvoting, and 3. downvoting. And, at least in a properly implemented system, each of those options should result in different sorts of effects (including "no effect" for the middle option) on the given post. This rule takes away 1/3rd of the available spectrum of feedback. I suspect this will result in a content system that is less reflective of the overall interests of the community.

I'm a fan of removing the downvote button. Might not be super effective because you can just turn off the sub styling and so many people are mobile, but it can't hurt.

Not a fan of selectively removing images. Way too much leeway for the mods to delete things they don't like and keep things they do like. Perfect example! Mods kept up the image of the Reddit alien in someone's window from yesterday because, wouldn't ya know, it's a picture of a mod's house. Every other image was removed, but a picture of nothing else but a website's logo is allowed to stay up? Has literally nothing to do with Chicago, yet it somehow got 1400 upvotes and is one of the highest upvoted posts in this sub's history. I don't even know who would want to advertise that they use any website, let alone this one... I'm rambling. You get the point. One good rule change, one bad rule change.

Let me add a little insight here. The image rule has never been written in stone. There have been various mod discussions about it on and off since it was implemented. The post you are referencing was a catalyst. I think any responsible mod that sees a post that breaks the rules get 1400 upvotes will bring the rule into question.

I can't speak for all of the mods, but I view my moderation role as one of stewardship to the community. We have a very large and diverse community, so any rule or lack of rule is going to upset some people. we try to make the best calls we can. No matter what the popular opinion is, the loudest voices will always be the ones complaining. It's sometimes difficult to determine where the community stands. We're human, and sometimes things go wrong. Fortunately we can change things when things don't work out as planned.

I am all for this no downvote button. I'm sick of the massive amount of downvotes the hidden morons that browse this sub give out, but then turn around and complain that there isn't enough content.

Too bad it can't be turned off across the board, including mobile. We know how serious neckbeards are and if they don't like a post, they will seriously take the time to get on their phone to ensure it gets downvoted.

I am working with admins on my main account which mods with admins and have contact with them and am trying to get an addition to subreddit settings that would disable all downvotes on a subreddit if chosen by mods and configured as such.

You know we don't make all those subreddits, right? Other people do. We don't remove or discourage posts about comics or running or cycling & etc. We're just letting people know that if they want to get involved in a niche local community, they're there.

I know that it's not the same people that mod them all. And i wasn't attacking anyone in particular (apologies if it came off that way) I guess I was more commenting on the state of the main sub. Other major city subs have no issue with someone posting about a concert/show/etc in the main without it being trashed, down voted and sometimes deleted (mostly by the OP).

Personally I think getting rid of the down votes may be a good experiment. Quality will rise to the top still.

Please note that event postings are subject to removal per moderator discretion. We're a community, not a bulletin board or marketplace. You may not use us to increase the popularity, profit, or market presence of your personal project.